PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS QUEENSLAND—HARBOURS, RIVERS AND MARINE [By the President, NORMAN S. PIXLEY, C.M.G., M.B.E., V.R.D., Kt.O.N., F.R.Hist.S.Q.] (Read at the Annual Meeting of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 28 September 1972) The growth and development of ports to handle seaborne trade has been vital to Australia, but nowhere has this been so marked as in Queensland, fortunate in possessing more deep-sea ports than any other State. From the founding of the convict settlement in Moreton Bay in 1824 and for many years thereafter, settlement, development and supplies depended entirely on sea com­ munications. With the movement of explorers, prospectors and settlers steadily northward, vessels sailed up the coast carrying supplies for the overland travellers: some prospectors and others took passage by sea rather than face the land journey. Both passengers and cargo had to be put ashore safely at a point on the coast nearest to their destination with sheltered water. In the earlier days of the nineteenth century it was essential that some of the vessels find shelter where there were supplies of water, firewood for the ship's galley, with such food as the virgin countryside offered and where the mariner in distress could make good repairs to his ship. With great thankfulness James Cook found such a haven in the Endeavour River in time of desperate need in 1770. As settlements grew and developed, merchant ships, in addition to maintaining services on the coast, now carried our products to oversea markets, returning with migrants and goods. On 9 November 1845 the brig Eliza Kincaid anchored near the mouth of the Brisbane River to receive the first cargo of wool. The Hunter River Company began a regular steamship service between Sydney and Moreton Bay in 1842 with three ships Shamrock, Rose and Thistle, to which the Sovereign was later added. Shamrock, the first to arrive, brought Gov­ ernor Gipps, taking him first to Cleveland which residents 10 of Ipswich and a number of squatters strongly stressed should be the port instead of Brisbane Town on the Brisbane River. Unimpressed by Cleveland where he had to land at low water, the Govemor re-embarked in Shamrock and pro­ ceeded up the river, where the ship berthed at South Bris­ bane, port facilities consisting of a large tree trunk lying parallel to the river bank where the ship lay alongside and moored to trees. The following year Shamrock brought Captain Wickham, R.N., appointed Police Magistrate at Brisbane, and Mrs. Wickham. Captain Wickham carried out extensive surveys in Moreton Bay during 1846 and 1847 in company with James Burnett and James Warner. In 1825, one year after the convict settlement was estab­ lished. Pilot Gray assumed duties in Moreton Bay. He marked the natural chaimels of the Brisbane River. Captain the Hon. John Rous in H.M.S. Rainbow made a survey of the Rous Channel in 1827. He was a son of the Earl of Stradbroke whose heir was Viscount Dunwich, hence the name of the island bounding the southern portion of the Bay, bestowed by Governor Darling, and that of the settle­ ment on the western side of Stradbroke Island at the south end of Rainbow Channel. In 1845 a scheme was afoot to resume transportation of offenders to establish a new colony to the northward of Moreton Bay: the "exiles", as they were termed, were to be granted a conditional pardon on arrival and could in due course be allotted lan(l. The proposal, made to the Home Government, was approved and greeted with enthusiasm by Mr. W. E. Gladstone, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who in March 1846 formally offered Colonel Barney, the originator of the idea, charge of the settlement. Sir Charles Fitzroy, Govemor of New South Wales, re­ ceived a fresh commission appointing him the first Governor of the new colony, to be named North Australia, the south­ ern boundary of which was fixed at latitude twenty-six degrees south, which is a little south of Wide Bay. At the same time the principal officials were gazetted, and Colonel Barney as superintendent arrived with his staff in the fine harbour of Port Curtis where the name of Gladstone was conferred on the new settlement. Later Maryborough was named after Lady Mary Fitzroy by Petrie and Stewart Russell in 1862. The first "exile" ship had left England, but before it arrived, Earl Grey, who had formed a new ministry, directed 11 Governor Fitzroy to abandon the establishment, which was done within two months of its commencement. The former limits, or abuse of limits of the colony of New South Wales, were restored in Governor Fitzroy's commis­ sion on his representing that his authority must be re- extended as "squatters were rushing up to the area" In 1848 Maurice O'Connell (later Sir Maurice) was appointed Com­ missioner of Crown Lands for the Burnett District and then Government Resident at Port Curtis. The Bangalore, the last of the so-called "exile" ships, arrived in Brisbane in 1850 with convict ticket-of-leave men in addition to free settlers who included some members of the families of the "exiles". Rev. John Dunmore Lang previously proposed that when Separation came the new colony be called Cooksland, and had floated the Cooksland Colonisation Company. The first of his chartered ships, the Fortitude, reached Moreton Bay on 20 January 1849, but honour for the first migrant ship to arrive went to the Artemesia, which entered the Bay on 13 December 1848. More migrant ships foUowed, some going direct to Wide Bay, Port Curtis and Keppel Bay. The schooner Albion, 85 tons, in December 1855, was the first sea-going vessel to navigate the Fitzroy River, with supplies from Gladstone for Charles Archer, who had three months before taken up a property, portion of which comprised the area where Rock­ hampton now stands. Albion anchored in the vicinity of the present offices of the Rockhampton Harbour Board. Chas. Haynes, a seaman on board, became a pilot for the port of Rockhampton later, holding the position for over 30 years. As more vessels, large and small, went further up the coast, around Cape York to the Gulf of Carpentaria, so grew the need for harbours and rivers with good shelter, which they could enter and leave with safety to land or take on board passengers. These harbours and rivers had to be surveyed, the channels marked with beacons, buoys and lights and the ports developed. Pilots were also needed for the larger ships. Many vessels were required to provide these services, in­ cluding dredges with their ancillary craft to maintain and improve the channels and ports. Thus a tremendous undertaking faced the new colony in the years that lay ahead after Separation in 1859. When it is realized that, in addition, Queensland assumed responsibility for providing and maintaining lighthouses, lightships, beacons and buoys along its enormous coastline of some 12 2000 miles and at points on the Great Barrier Reef, the magnitude of its task becomes apparent. On Separation the New South Wales Government pre­ sented Queensland with its first vessel, the Spitfire, a wooden ketch of 84 tons built in 1856, which served the harbour authorities for many years. MARINE AUTHORITIES There was now the requirement to set up competent authorities to assume responsibility for the marine affairs of the colony, hitherto controlled by New South Wales. Acts in force included the Harbours Acts of New South Wales, 3 William IV No. 6, 3 August 1832, and 22 Victoria No. 4 1858. The former contained the authority to . "fine the master of any craft for discharging any ballast, gravel, earth or filth in any roadstead, channel or navigable creek" (aimed to preserve the depth of those waters, this also appears to have been an early attempt to control pollution). Before the close of 1859, appointments were made of a harbour master, a tide surveyor (A. Macdonald) and a ship­ ping master at Wide Bay, with W. E. Hillyard as Harbour Master of Port Curtis. The Governor-in-Council, on 25 February 1860, approved the setting up of the Queensland Pilot Board and the Queensland Steam Navigation Board: members of the latter were Wra. Thornton, Collector of Customs, and Charles Tiffin, with R. J. Colley as a non-official member. On the same date the Governor approved Maryborough, Port Curtis and Rockhampton as ports for the registration of shipping and of ships and vessels under the Merchant Ship­ ping Act of 1854, an act of the Imperial Parliament. Appointments of a Harbour Master and pilot were made to Port Denison (Bowen) and the Port of Wide Bay was proclaimed, whilst the procurement of a dredge was approved. CODE OF FLAG SIGNALS With vessels bound for Queensland ports, it was im­ portant that information as to their impending arrival be passed to the authorities and agents concemed. As this could only be done by visual means, the Harbour Board in 1861 devised a simple code of flag signals for hoisting at the yard of the flagstaff at signal stations on the coast near the en­ trance to ports: the code was promulgated in "notices to mariners". On first sighting, a blue and white flag vyas hoisted on the south yard arm if the ship was approaching 13 from the south, or the north yard arm if coming from that direction. When sufficiently close to identify the class of vessel a series of "descriptive" flags were used to indicate whether it was a ship, barque, brig, schooner, cutter or steamer.